Where’d they go?

I’ve been missing my feet lately in kapotasana. It was a huge mystery: my backbends are much more comfortable and deep, and yet I’d be in kapo, crawling my hands forward and then out to the sides, but my feet were nowhere to be found. I didn’t freak out, since the kapo Bs were in a huge improvement cycle, but I was perplexed, ’cause I could feel my hair brushing my feet, but couldn’t find my toes!

This morning, I set up the video camera and aimed it at my left foot. What I discovered was that I was crawling my hands up past my toes on the outside. Duh! Then I’d vainly search around, moving my hands out toward the edges of my mat — further away from my feet!

The most amusing thing about this discovery is the camera set-up. Below is my rig: a foam block strapped at an angle to the yoga room lamp holds the video camera at the correct angle to keep an eye on my left foot and hand. (The image is taken on the iPhone, using the Hipstamatic app. Cool, huh?? I love that the pic is square.)

 

Priceless

  • Sitting crosslegged on my chair at work all day.
  • Wearing flat shoes.
  • Stretching out in the yoga trapeze.
  • Doing daily practice.
  • Throwing too many variables into the experiment so I can’t say for sure what’s doing what.
  • No more pain at all in my back = priceless.

     

    Some shakti for art lovers

    70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.

     

    Seriously, you need to see more before you believe?

     

    Shaktipat x 2: How many times do you need to be hit over the head with this?

    “You come from the west, you see postures, you say ‘I want it.’ And then you take. All of this is taking, it is the western thinking. I want it I want it. If you don’t understand yoga because of that way of thinking, not my fault. Your fault.”

     

    Romantic “Good Morning” text from The Cop

    “Your contraption is here.”

     

    So obvious it makes me want to slap myself

    Okay, so I have been going along practicing practicing practicing. Every day. La la la. Saturdays off.

    Simple.

    Except I have this weird thing in my back. It’s been around for months and it hurts in back bends. Some days not so bad (only hurts in UD when I walk my hands in close), and some days pretty annoying (hurts in every up dog and any other back bend in the entire practice).

    Quadratus lumborum, I thought. Ice. Heat. Stretch. Epsom salt baths. Arnica oil. Wintergreen oil. Capsaicin lotion. Mind control. Hypnagogic suggestion. Visualization.

    Nothing.

    Went to a chiropractor. He diagnosed a tight psoas. Okay.

    Adjustments. Ultrasound. Heat. Ice. More adjustments.

    Nothing.

    Decided it doesn’t freaking matter WHAT it is, it just needs to go away.

    Practice. Stretching on the chair, the bed, the couch, the kitchen counter, the office. Tightened bandhas, loosened bandhas. Breathed deeper, breathed more lightly. More raw food, more grains, add some dairy, subtract dairy, ditch soy, add hemp, grow suspicious of nightshades, consider dropping — once and for all — my Tootsie Pop habit.

    Damn! Still here.

    Okay, so here I am sitting in the office. It’s Friday, so I have on jeans and clogs. Which means I can kick off the clogs and sit cross legged in my chair.

    What do I feel? A pully-stretchy feeling in *exactly* that spot. “Oh, that feels good,” I think, and then it hits me: I do not sit cross legged in my chair all day every day any more because I now wear skirts and high heels every day. (Stupid high, by the way — because my shoe aesthetic is in direct conflict with my foot health.) Over the past 6 months, it’s been more and more skirts and higher and higher heels.

    Duh!

    I believe I will be shopping for some pants and flat shoes this weekend. I need to sit the right way for a week and see if it corrects this back krink.

    ***

    The experiment will be thrown off by one variable that’ll get tossed into the mix as soon as it gets delivered to the house and The Cop can install it:

     

    More romance

    “You’re not a hippie. You’re esoteric. At least that’s what I tell my coworkers.”

     

    Romantic Words from The Cop

    “You’re going to be a handful when you’re senile.”

     

    Super Bowl

    The Cop and I are watching the Super Bowl. A commercial about the stages of a man’s life. Amusing. At the end they announce Dove Soap for Men.

    “Karen!” The Cop bellows, “Have I been using WOMEN’S SOAP?!?!”